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Month: June 2017

Over the course of three months, the UK has been subject to as many acts
of terror, with Daesh (ISIS) claiming responsibility for them. On Saturday,

with many of London Anti-fascists arriving home from an action in
Liverpool against the EDL, we learnt that only moments before a terrorist

attack had occurred at London Bridge and Borough Market. As always, our

love and solidarity is with the victims of the attack, their families mourning

globally, and the many onlookers and bystanders who had to flee. Our solidarity

is also given to the innocent bystander recovering from a gun shot wound to the

head at the hands of the police armed response units. However, there is only so

much solidarity we can give, whilst waiting for another of these attacks to occur,

before we are forced look at the root cause of terrorism in the UK. We must do so through an internationalist lens.

Already, the story appears similar to that of the Manchester bombing, in
which Salman Abedi was reported multiple times by a worried Muslimcommunity for his extremist views. We will soon learn more about the
three attackers and their histories. Will they, like Salman Abedi, have
been given free reign to fight in jihadist militias abroad? Salman Abedi
and others were allowed to travel to Libya, under the assumption that
the violence they engaged in could be used to further the imperialist
interests of the British state. The shedding of the illusion that the
consequences of this tacit support for jihadists can be confined to
distant countries provides us with a bitter taste of the carnage that
our governments have sponsored across the Middle East and North Africa.
Therefore, what we need to understand if we are ever to combat this
violence is that ‘homegrown’ terrorism does not exist. Terrorism like
this comes out of the foreign policy of the ruling classes. It comes out
of unbridled support for Saudi Arabia, the arms we sell to them, the
blind eye we turn to the intolerant Wahhabist interpretation of the
Koran which they cynically promote, and the support they provide to
Salafi militias, support which inevitably reaches groups like Daesh.
Only a week ago, the Guardian claimed that the Tories are refusing topublish details of a ‘sensitive’ report which suggests that Saudi Arabia
is a primary cause and source of funding for terrorism. It is now well
known that Daesh’s organizational origins lay with the shell of the
Baathist state. It was able to grow across Iraq as Britain and America,
in order to establish control of the country after the invasion of 2003,
promoted vicious religious sectarianism that has killed hundreds of
thousands to date.

While the Tories try to smear Jeremy Corbyn with the accusation that he
is ‘soft’ on terrorism, despite having been the ones managing a
disastrous domestic and foreign policy for seven years, they sell
billions of pounds worth of arms to Saudi Arabia so that they can bomb
the working classes in Yemen. While they shirk from the responsibility
of the failed imperialist project in Libya – and the fact that they
allowed Salman Abedi and others free reign to fight with the Libyan
Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which further destabilized Libya and
created a breeding ground for Islamic fundamentalists – there is ananti-fascist and internationalist struggle occurring in Rojava.

Rojava is an autonomous Kurdish region bordering Turkey, Syria and Iraq.
Since 2013, Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish and Syriac militias that make up
the Syrian Democratic Forces such as the YPG (People’s Protection
Units), the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units), the MLKP (Marxist Leninist
Communist Party) and the IFB (International Freedom Battalion) have
been fighting Daesh on the front lines and have been liberating towns,
and villages – accepting refugees into their cantons by the hundreds of
thousands. There, as operations in Raqqa are prepared, as Tabqa is
liberated, as the Yazidi people are freed from sexual slavery, Daesh are
being destroyed. They are fleeing. They are scared. They are desperate. We send oursolidarity to those fighting Daesh on the front lines, including those within the ranks of London Anti-fascists.

The fight against Daesh is an anti-fascist struggle, a working class
international struggle. Daesh is not a symptom of Islam, it is a symptom of
imperialism. If you want to see more terrorism on our streets, then it
is only right that you support imperialism and the ruling classes such
as the Tories who are directly responsible for Manchester. If you want
to see Daesh eradicated from the face of the earth, then first you need
to understand that internationalism is necessary to do so. It is
important now and always to remember that the victims globally of Daeshare disproportionately Muslim. In the wake of these attacks, remember
the international struggle and pay no heed to the reactionary dog
whistle politics which call for the internment, deportation, and
assimilation of Muslims into a racist and nationalist project.